


wearing what you think is hard

by duchamp



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 06:23:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5574318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duchamp/pseuds/duchamp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’ve never really been able to wipe off the residue of the other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	wearing what you think is hard

She comes to him, the same as he comes to her over the years. They’re intermittent meetings, punctuated with crackling saber sparks and hurtful words. She calls him Ben, referring to his long forsaken first name. She reminds him of Han Solo, of the father he cut down. An aging heart strung along with creaking bones and false hopes, all run through. A blazing red birthright. A baptism. She calls him back to his past Master, to his Uncle Luke. She says, “It’s not too late.” She says, “Come back.”

He parries her blows; matching her in strength, in the sheer and unbridled energy of youth. They’re children, still. And he has such a long way to go. To remedying his Grandfather’s failures. To fulfilling true order. To succeeding as Sith. “Fool,” he says as he lunges. Her defensive stance is tight and teeming and ready for him. Bloodlust sings through his veins. “You’re all fools.”

 

\--

 

As intrinsically tied as they're to each other, doomed to share this ancient link, this Force-bond, Kylo smells his Mother’s attentive touch on her. He senses his Uncle’s stinking influence, rotten advice and morals eating away at all that _potential_. Rey could rival the best of all his Knights if she would only just succumb to the inevitable grace of the Dark. She would excel under the tutelage of Snoke, serving the Supreme Leader beside him.

It’s a dream Kylo has often, her joining him. A perverted and private fantasy he allows himself.

He’s always searching for her aura in the vast void of space, always reaching for the curves and angles that make up Rey, because the instinct is planted in him like a damned weed unwilling to be uprooted. The first interrogation was a mistake, an unforeseen complication. She edged into him, both their minds joined as one, and they’ve never really been able to wipe off the residue of the other.

 

\--

 

Rey believes she can bring him back. She sees herself curing the sickness coursing through him, all thanks to Luke’s powers of suggestion. She originally wanted Ren dead. She wanted him to pay for his crimes. For genocide. For patricide. For being a harbinger of death and war. “No,” Luke warned her. “Those desires will only bring you closer to his path. Instead, try to persuade him differently. Show him the Jedi way. Lead by example.”

Kylo Ren and Ben Solo are one and the same. Two halves of a misbegotten whole. And Rey considers it her mission to reconcile them.

 

\--

 

They're borne together by something greater than them. By The Force. Which must have made some cosmic mistake, because the first time Ren kisses her Rey doesn’t pull away. Instead, she fists a hand in his hair and brings him ever closer to her breast; wishes he could burrow inside her and she inside him without any regard for consequences. Because it feels so right, this joining, like the mechanics of a starship coming together to form a living engine.

He breathes her name, his mouth at her cheek, warm breath fanning the skin. His heartbeat sounds in her ears.

This is undeniable. This is wrong.

 

\--

 

It changes little, in the grand scheme of things. They're still servants of opposing sides. And when they meet, more often than not, they cross blades.

During a duel on Coruscant (senate meeting ambushed and so many injured, so many dead) Ren leaves an angry opening across Rey’s abdomen, gash weeping puss and vital fluids. The wound earns her an extended stay in the medical bay. As she lays there, Rey considers. It’s not so much a knifing, a betrayal, this scar. “This had to happen,” she whispers to herself, tears hot and wet as she wipes them away.

Balance. A souvenir left for the one she gave him. The one he’s worn for years, cutting his face in two.

 

\--

 

“You don’t get to have him,” Rey says. She’s worn down, all her vitality and forcefulness sanded into something finer. Her muscles are threaded through with command and power, virtues no longer held back by the naïveté of youth. “He’s mine.”

“My dear girl,” Snoke replies on the downhill of a sinister chuckle, “you’re mistaken.”

Ren stands beside his Master. His only reaction to the entire exchange is a tightening of his jaw. He’s so different from the boy Rey grew up sparring with, the one who kissed her between the sweat and exertion of brutal blows. The one who deified a monster in a mask and later became him. The one she loved. Still loves, Rey amends. She'll not lie about this. She'll not lie about what’s between them, because she'll never stop trying to bring him back. “Come with me,” she beseeches Ren. “Leave this and we’ll—”

Snoke throws her back with the strength of his power and Rey goes sprawling across the floor. A heap of limbs and her lightsaber missing, defenseless. “Fool,” Snoke mutters, harkening back to Ren’s words from long ago. “You’re all fools.” Reaching out with tendrils of the Dark, he threatens to choke the life out of her. “Now,” he says, “you’ll die.”

Only she doesn’t. Ren comes up from behind Snoke, silent and determined, and strikes with his saber. Enraged, his Master turns and accusingly screams Kylo’s given title. But not his name. Because his name is Ben. Ben Solo. And he’s standing above Rey, offering her his hand.

 

\--

 

Rey supposes what happens next could never be avoided. It was written in the constellations, in the celestial and magnetic fields of space. Vader could only become a Skywalker again by embracing his love for his son. And for the price he paid, his own death was used as a currency.

For Ren, the same principal applies. Snoke drives him down before he breathes his last, primeval brutality centered entirely on Ren’s body—shredding him.

He falls.

 

\--

 

Ben Solo's shaking in Rey’s arms, a tangled mess of black garb and flesh and bone. “Tell my mother,” his voice stutters and blood lines his lips as he tries to make out the words, “that I love her. Tell her I’m sorry.”

Rey nods, putting on her bravest face. She leans down and kisses him softly; a hello, a farewell. Ben’s blood stains her mouth. She says, “I will.”

He smiles, sags in her arms, slipping away and becoming one with The Force.

 

\--

 

This was written. This was destined. This was right.

**Author's Note:**

> Yep, they’re probably cousins but who really gives a damn. If I’m still shipping siblings on _The Borgias_ , I can get on board this trash train. More plot bunnies are hopping around in my head, so we’ll see if I come up with anything else for these two.


End file.
